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Dodgers Fan Makes Most of McCourt Divorce Case

LOS ANGELES — The scorched-earth divorce case of Frank and Jamie McCourt has pulled back the curtain on the let-them-eat-cake manner in which they have owned and operated the Dodgers.

Angelinos have learned that the endgame of increasing ticket prices and slashing payroll has been the McCourts’ taking out tens of millions in equity loans against the team — not to spring for an ace pitcher, but for opulent mansions and a Champagne lifestyle.

For many Dodgers fans, the lurid details revealed in court filings and the early stages of the trial, which resumes Monday after a two-week break, has left them feeling as helpless and hopeless — and increasingly angry — as when Jonathan Broxton, the struggling former closer, takes the mound.

But for one of them, Joshua Fisher, the McCourt divorce has been quite the career move.

Eleven months ago, Fisher, a 24-year-old University of Minnesota Law School student and lifelong Dodgers fan, wedded those two interests and started the Web site DodgerDivorce.com, which flies under the banner: “Bleeding Dodger Blue, Cash-Flow Red and Dollar-Sign Green.”

Now, Fisher has become the go-to guy for analysis of the McCourt divorce, which could affect whether the team is sold. He is a regular on Los Angeles sports talk radio shows, has appeared on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” and in studio on local news broadcasts, and his Web site is bookmarked by baseball executives who are keeping an eye on the case.

“I tapped into something that a lot of people happened to care about,” said Fisher, who was spurred to begin the site last October after a friend e-mailed him the first court filings in the case. “If this was the owners of the Twins getting divorced, nobody would care. But it’s Frank and Jamie McCourt who have thrust themselves into the spotlight, and this is one of the things that could happen. It’s one of those stories that could only happen in L.A.”

So, too, is Fisher’s.

Fisher moved to Los Angeles with his mother when his parents divorced shortly after he was born, and he grew up in and around San Pedro, a working-class suburb at the edge of the Port of Los Angeles. His affection for the Dodgers began early, when his uncle Mike Eberhard would take him to Dodgers games and hoist him on his shoulders so he would not be required to buy him a ticket.

But instead of being enamored of Dodgers stars like Mike Piazza and Eric Karros, Fisher was most interested in peeling back the layers of the franchise, poring himself into nontraditional statistics and questioning the wisdom of how the Dodgers’ roster was constructed.

“It was things that, at 9 years old, most kids don’t have a clue about,” Eberhard said. “We’d go to Dodger games, and he’d talk about who was in the minor leagues, who was underrated, who was overrated.”

Photo

Joshua Fisher, 24, is keeping tabs on the divorce case of Frank and Jamie McCourt on his Web site, Dodgerdivorce.com.Credit
Christine Cotter for The New York Times

That sort of analysis, methodical and dispassionate, is the defining characteristic of Dodger Divorce, in which Fisher thoroughly examines any news related to the divorce — be it court filings or whether the team will sign its top draft pick. Fisher said that on a busy day, he would surpass 10,000 hits on the site, whose spartan design can be described as early caveman. Fisher has more than 1,000 Twitter followers, a number that has doubled since the beginning of the trial, in which he gives play-by-play updates.

“Many of my readers would like it if I was angrier,” said Fisher, who majored in English with a minor in finance at the University of Kansas. “Very little about this has shocked or surprised me. I’ve been into the business of baseball for a long time, and between that and my experience in finance and bankruptcy, this is just how the world works. I think it’s very unfortunate that my favorite sports team has to go through this public spectacle, but it doesn’t make me less of a fan. I can separate rooting for the team from what it does.”

Is he typical of Dodgers fans?

“I doubt it,” he said.

Fisher said his one pinch-me moment of the last year came at the opening of the trial, when the court’s public-information officer called his name as he took roll of the credentialed news media.

Fisher has found it invaluable to be at the trial, working the corridors with reporters, getting in a question here and there with the small army of lawyers and advisers the McCourts have brought to the case. But he does not consider himself a journalist.

The cost of rearranging his work schedule at a Minneapolis law firm, receiving approval (at least for now) for missing class, and flying to Los Angeles and staying at a downtown hotel is not a hardship; it is an investment.

Fisher says he expects to have his law degree by next spring, and then it will be time to begin his career path. He interned at a commercial bank as an undergraduate and has worked at a law firm while at Minnesota, where he is studying business law — troubled assets, fittingly enough. These days, that is not an uncommon path to the front office of a baseball team.

As he sat on a park bench on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, looking out over the Pacific Ocean not far from where he grew up, Fisher said he knew this was an important time in his life.

“This is a pretty highly leveraged month for me,” Fisher said. “Employers like people with a story, and I have a better story now than I did a year ago and I see the difference. I’ve had some success walking through every door that’s been opened. I don’t see any value in closing doors right now. Whatever is out there, I don’t know, but I’m listening.”

Fisher arrived back in Los Angeles on Saturday night on a one-way ticket. He will stay here all week and probably next, watching and listening intently in a downtown courtroom, waiting for signs of what the future holds for the Dodgers. And himself, too.

A version of this article appears in print on September 20, 2010, on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: Fan First, Divorce Reporter Second. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe